Robin Falck's Nido: A Finnish MicroCabin in the woods

In Finland you can build a house without a permit as long as it's no larger than 128-square-feet. Needless to say, most people just get a permit. But in 2010 Robin Falck actually designed and built an itsy-bitsy Finnish dream house in the woods, a project he fantasized about and finally pursued because, according to Falck, "my military service was approaching and after sketching and calculating it seemed so possible."

After consulting a few architects, Falck began construction in early June, and after just two weeks "the only thing missing was a window and door, which arrived a couple of weeks later." The house, which Falck calls Nido (Italian for 'birds nest') is a mere 96-square-feet with a 50-square-foot loft bedroom. A large window spans the two stories, letting in tons of natural light and affording a full view of the sky at night. And since Nido sits on a lakeshore there are spectacular day time views as well.

Unfortunately, tight after Falck built Nido his military duties kicked in, and it was a full year before he was back and able to finally enjoy all his hard work. If you're wondering how much it all cost, the answer is: very. "I was surprised how affordable the whole project was," Falck said. "Most of the materials are recycled and I haven't really calculated how much it finally cost, but the ballpark figure is something like $10,500 plus the man hours."

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When Perrin isn't scouting the best new design talent for Core77, or working as the Products Editor of The Architect's Newspaper, or writing for Cool Hunting, Design Applause, Print Magazine, Frieze and The Paris Review, she's trying to put her MFA in Fiction from Vermont College to good use.

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